


merrily, merrily and onward we go

by gliss



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hooking up, M/M, but with feelios, this was written pre-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4150815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gliss/pseuds/gliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam realizes he's watching Gansey's fingers, how a little starburst of white gathers around each knuckle against the handle on the luggage. Gansey's hands aren't delicate the way Noah's hands are delicate. They're strong, an entire person's worth of power settled into his imperious index finger, with the ability to absolve the problems of many unhappy masses against his palm. </p>
<p>The next time he tunes back in, Gansey is staring at him and they've situated themselves in their room, crowded into the narrow doorway with the luggage of three sets of suits and nice shoes and most of Adam's confidence lolling at their feet.</p>
<p>"Uh," Adam starts, "dinner, right? Were we talking about dinner?"</p>
<p>"Is it Cabeswater," Gansey interrupts. No, Gansey doesn't interrupt. He makes tangents. Adam shrugs -- sometimes he forgets that Gansey is one of them. That is he one of Gansey's, however conflicted about it he feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	merrily, merrily and onward we go

**Author's Note:**

> i really don't understand this myself   
>  for kris 'cause

//

 

The hotel Gansey checks into reminds Adam of his sister, in the way it's all sleek and simple and unattainable, with painted fish on the ceiling. If a hotel could be characterized as a font this one would be Raleway, probably -- no fuss and lots of unexpectedly legible spine.

Gansey deals with the front desk in his efficiently polite kind of way, the one that suggests he's traveled all his life and is also slated to become a member of Congress at some point. An internship in DC is basically like that at this point, Adam thinks, if he gets it. If he can even make it to Charlottesville, if he can make it to --

"Parrish," Gansey is saying, "Adam."

Adam seeps back into moving reality. "Gansey?"

"Key card," Gansey informs him crisply, starting to roll their luggage along the floor. The wheels on his luggage are shiny and engaging and prompts the linoleum to shine and engage back at them. Adam watches it all with the kind of fascination that comes with staring into the sun -- painful, and addicting. "Breakfast starts at six-thirty tomorrow."

"Thanks," says Adam, and feels weaker for it. Gansey would have answered with an alright. Possibly a longer version of alright, with more syllables and nuance.

But Gansey, who's grown from mostly unintentionally condescending to only sometimes condescending, merely smiles and rolls on. Adam realizes he's watching Gansey's fingers, how a little starburst of white gathers around each knuckle against the handle on the luggage. Gansey's hands aren't delicate the way Noah's hands are delicate. They're strong, an entire person's worth of power settled into his imperious index finger, with the ability to absolve the problems of many unhappy masses against his palm.

"We could go out for dinner," Gansey suggests while Adam tunes back in yet again, although it's somewhat fuzzy, like fiddling with old radio knobs while dodging an overeager puppy. In this case the puppy happened to be Cabeswater, tugging along his gut, and Adam hears himself repeat the word "dinner" distantly while telling said mind puppy to sit, please.

Blue should be here. Blue, friend of dogs everywhere, should be dealing with this, and not Adam, whose entire existence skitters around shady paths and digging his hands into the earth like he's going to bury them instead.

The next time he tunes back in, Gansey is staring at him and they've situated themselves in their room, crowded into the narrow doorway with the luggage of three sets of suits and nice shoes and most of Adam's confidence lolling at their feet.

"Uh," Adam starts, "dinner, right? Were we talking about dinner?"

"Is it Cabeswater," Gansey interrupts. No, Gansey doesn't interrupt. He makes tangents. Adam shrugs -- sometimes he forgets that Gansey is one of them. That is he one of Gansey's, however conflicted about it he feels.

"I'm not hungry," Adam says instead. Gansey only nods, swings his backpack around, and settles into one of the beds.

"It's not going to be like DC," and when did they start doing this? Talking in half conversations, skipping stones with no actual direction across the river, making tentative sense, or peace --

"I know."

Gansey's arm comes up. He brushes hair back from his forehead. Adam gets struck suddenly by how nice his arm is, a different sort of nice than Ronan's arm, an elegant sort of nice. Gansey, sitting in bed like a king, looking around for the cheap hotel slippers and not realizing they were stowed away, looks unreal and golden and a little bit like a story. Adam swallows.

"You're nervous," Gansey declares, all at once a candle flame wavering between having everything together and ripping away his tether hooks, "It won't be like last time."

"But Cabeswater --"

It was the first time Adam remembers consciously replying to Gansey directly all day. It feels warm.

"Adam," Gansey is all of a sudden close, larger than life and wilder, "Adam. You're not Cabeswater. You're not supposed to be Cabeswater. I thought we figured it out, before. You're Adam Parrish."

He doesn't add, "you're a free man," because they both feel grey and fuzzy about it, but Adam's insides slowly warm further, a furnace coaxed alive from disuse. He's probably been frozen ever since he first felt the snap of Cabeswater lining in his vertebrae.

"I did something really stupid back then," he says slowly, opening like one of those super condensed towels soaked in a warm bath -- uncertainly, and then altogether, amber melting into warm, sweet honey. He wonders if Gansey can stand honey.

Evidently the answer is yes, because Gansey's face gives a quick sort of twisting, and his all-American one-hundred percent congressional in-control face loosens into something roaring, and then he's leaning in close and Adam feels an answering roar in his stomach and they're kissing, hard and unbridled and everything stuck in their throats leaping into mindless physical action.

It's not like how he used to think kissing Blue would go. It's cooler -- Gansey's mint habit leaves his mouth perpetually cool, cool and lovely and like the aircon that doesn't exist in Adam's tiny apartment -- and wilder and their teeth are knocking together; Gansey is pushing him down onto his bed, like he's finally unafraid to touch him.

Actually, this is not like how he thought anything would go, but Adam feels more in control of himself than he has in long months, autumn chill settling against his back, warming quickly as Gansey's hands push him deeper into the mattress. Gansey bites at his bottom lip the way Adam brushes his hand over something expensive, and Adam feels himself go all soft and limp and warm, tension bleeding out of him in quiet little pants.

It makes Gansey more solid, somehow, a solid being with solid fingers and solid elbows and a solid presence. Adam makes a noise. He's not sure what kind of noise it is, except that Gansey pulls back and looks at him with all this fire and smoke and wrecked cars and gasoline in his eyes and says, in a low voice, "God, Adam."

"Go on," Adam whispers, scared shitless from wanting this so badly that it burns a steady burning pulsing through his fingers and his head. "Gansey."

So Gansey does, kissing his jaw and his chin and then randomly on the tip of his nose, even though they're both sweating and polluted from travel and his skin probably tastes somewhat disgusting. Gansey doesn't care, Gansey never cared -- he never cared, Adam realizes now -- Gansey falls against him with all his intent and purpose like a hanged man cut loose, sure and certain of landing. It takes a lot of fumbling and bad language and Adam grabbing at the back of his neck to make sure he's still there before their shirts are yanked over their heads, Adam and his clever fingers not clever enough to undo the topmost button on Gansey's goddamned polo quickly enough.

Then he's touching Gansey's bare skin, which is unexpectedly golden for being laid over all that blue blood, and hot against his fingers, and damp.

Gansey is expensive, and for the moment, he's _Adam's_.

Gansey slips between his legs, presses in against him hard, and suddenly Adam rushes back into himself, all parts Adam Parrish and no parts half dreaming onlooker, and wraps his legs around Gansey's waist.

It doesn't take too long to get from that to clumsy jerks of their fingers around the buttons of their pants: threadbare denim in Adam's case and finest European whatever the fuck Gansey has on at the moment. It doesn't take too long to get skin rubbing on skin, too slick for not having anything around to make it easier -- Adam almost whines at how slippery they both are, how hot and hard and practically dripping, but he's too used to keeping it quiet. It doesn't take long at all for Gansey to clamp his teeth around the corner of Adam's slender jaw, and then mutter out a half desperate sounding "Adam," before seizing up and letting go, pushing his face into the crook of Adam's neck. Adam doesn't bother to be careful back or anything, ruts up against Gansey just to feel him shudder helplessly until he finishes, until the ceiling decor swims back into prosperous looking fish instead of a sea of stars.

"So, we were discussing dinner," Gansey pipes up after a few minutes, sounding distracted. Adam nods, because Gansey is still sprawled over him, and he's afraid that talking would betray how fast his heartbeat is somehow, like the stutter of it would come out in his voice.

"I'm famished." Gansey's voice is rough in a way that Adam doesn't know how to react to, doesn't know what would be right or wrong. For a moment he thinks they're back at square one again, half conversations and underlaid meanings strewn about careless like glass.

Then he realizes he doesn't have to worry about it, for once. He nods and lets his fingers card through Gansey's hair, because he can't stop touching Gansey, can't stop feeling his golden skin and staring at the flush on his face, less Aglionby and more just boy.

Adam laughs. "Me, too," he says, "I'm starving."

"Great," Gansey's laughing too, sweet against his neck. "We should go for something nutritious."

"Spinach," Adam suggests, "carrots."

Gansey makes a noise of confused amusement. "Multivitamins."

Adam's stomach growls.

\--

It's late, way past six-thirty when Adam wakes up. Gansey is reading his journal in the next bed over, wireframes slipping down his nose, when Adam sits up, thinks his bed is unbelievably soft and the sheets are slipping cool under his legs. Beds for the rich who afford air conditioning. Luxurious. He rubs at his eyes and Gansey immediately puts down the journal to stare at him.

"Morning," Adam says after a moment, and then whatever had been twisted up into considering too heavily the sheets and the aircon smooths out at the way Gansey smiles all bright and happy.

"Good morning, Parrish." He's all business in a moment, setting his glasses down, starting to change out of his pajamas. "We're heading out in half an hour. Which suit are you wearing today?"

"The only one I have," Adam replies. He can't forget last night, when Gansey-on-fire had been a thing and this punctual Gansey that has everything lined up perfectly didn't exist. He can't forget Gansey's burning golden skin or the roughness in his voice. He can't forget that he has to forget. "Plus the checked vest from your father."

"Right." And then the matter falls, another half-meaning laid to rest. "It suits you."

Adam nods. He puts on his ironed out shirt. He puts on the vest, which does suit him in the way that makes him look infinitely wealthier than he is. But Adam isn't ready to be rich. He's just ready to be not poor. He puts on his nice trousers and for a moment both of them remember the way Gansey had rubbed an almost-rash into his finger trying to undo his jeans. Adam clears his throat and looks away while he fixes his tie; by the time he stops fiddling with it, Gansey is dressed and doing his own.

"Let me try something," Gansey says as he drags the strip of tie through his knot. It looks unbearably fancy. Adam jerks his head forward and then back in the world's most robotic nod. Gansey comes over and starts undoing his tie, and then, while Adam has his eyes closed, starts a complicated series of pulls and twists that ends with what he says is a Murrell knot. Adam opens his eyes. His tie looks more expensive than it is.

He almost steps back, but Gansey hasn't, so he doesn't either. "Thank you."

"I had yogurt while you were sleeping."

Adam doesn't fight the grin spreading across his face. "Was it nutritious?"

\--

The day gets more and more weary, a combination of Adam being tired and Gansey being swept off by some politician or another and having his brain sharpened into something that pierces a headache into his skull. Whenever Gansey drifts within range of being sensed, Adam feels nervous and relieved at the same time. He wonders if this is a healthy feeling, but at least he can't wonder for too long, because he has his own posse of sharp-minded wealthy businessmen to answer to. He discusses more things than he thought he knew and everyone finds him witty and charming and handsome, but whenever he catches a glimpse of himself all he sees is the tail end of his tie slipping like silk through Gansey's fingers.

Over lunch, which is made up of mostly bite sized ridiculously fancy looking delicacies that Adam doesn't know how to eat, they find each other again. Gansey hasn't dropped his Richard III skin yet, so his presence is all eclipsing and bright in the unbearable kind of way. He eats in a way that is hearty and beat at the same time. Adam can't quite figure it out.

"The sandwich always looks smaller when you eat it," Adam hears himself saying. Gansey laughs, flickers into best friend Gansey, and then flickers back out to pour some more iced tea for the wife of someone important sitting on his other side. The brief laugh, which smelled like mint, sticks to the side of Adam's neck for the rest of the afternoon.

Between bites of curiously matched vegetables and fish Adam realizes that he's practically twitching every time Gansey so much as looks at him. The afternoon fades slow as paint, which is to say it doesn't fade nearly fast enough, and every time Adam checks he's met with fresh disappointment. He wants to go back to the hotel room. He wants to -- do something, he doesn't know what. He wants to do something with Gansey but not like this, not with Richard Campbell Gansey the Third. He nods his head absently and everything at the lunch goes smoothly and he accepts a neat little stack of business cards along with compliments for his tie. Gansey nods approvingly and effusively. Adam is tired.

But at least he knows how to endure.

\--

They don't talk on the way back upstairs, but that's fine. Adam's voice is stuck somewhere in his left shoe. Gansey with his sleeves half rolled up and a watch on his wrist and a fresh mint leaf on his tongue makes Adam think about too many things that he's afraid to want.

He shouldn't be afraid to want. He's almost there, almost through Aglionby, he shouldn't be afraid. But he is, he doesn't know how to accept things he wants that are also given to him.

Gansey sticks the key card into the door. They both watch the light blink green, and then Gansey pushes the door open for Adam and they step inside. It's late-afternoon quiet, which at this hotel means newly made beds and freshly laundered clothes folded neatly on pillows and great planes of sunlight highlighting everything white in the room. Which means their shirts glow. Gansey glows too, in a different, more expensive way.

Adam wants to kiss him so badly that he turns away. If this was last night he could -- he would -- but now it's tomorrow, a new day crash landing over the old with sprawling new circumstances and rules and tensions. There's a curtain between them that only he can see.

If there is anything Adam is good at, it's fighting with silence. Especially when it comes to Gansey. Even when they don't fight, he's good at Gansey-silence. He's good at fading out, seeking refuge in Cabeswater.

He is not so good at talking, he thinks. Gansey should have taken Ronan this time. Then the two of them could have fucked around and fought over choice of road music and ordered expensive takeout and taken their sweet time deciding between their tens, hundreds of suit and tie combos. Then Gansey wouldn't have had to worry about Cabeswater coming down around their heads at any given point.

"-- dinner."

Adam snaps his attention on. "Dinner?"

Gansey's mouth is wry, a parody of their conversation yesterday. "Parrish," he says, his words all blooming, "don't be a dick."

"That's funny," Adam replies, because it is, because all dick jokes are automatically funny around Gansey, capital-D Dick. Gansey looks like he wants to smack him but laugh at the same time. Adam watches the struggle play out on his face. Laughing wins out, and then Gansey laughs with his entire body, shoulders shaking.

"You are magical, Adam Parrish," he says. Adam straightens his collar and says, "I am."

\--

Trying to go back to the glory days of Gansey Ronan Adam Noah is impossible now, first because they will never be four again -- not with Blue, not without Noah -- but the way they had all jostled around each other's space and laughed about it had felt so... natural. Adam reckons his trying to get back to that point with Gansey, a boy need for his boy self, is a little like working with the ley line. Except Gansey is not Cabeswater. Gansey is a king, the kind that sits astride a horse cantering down a forest path, surveys his land, and feels pleased.

But he repairs things one tiny rock at a time, the way he knows how. It feels good to crack endless jokes again with Gansey as they stroll down a New England street. Whatever they had hastily stop gapped over the summer has been fraying badly around the edges, cracked dark lines into pale porcelain. Now everything is on the mend. Now they can talk about suits without treading on needles. Now Gansey isn't afraid to smile at him and Adam isn't afraid to smile back and when Gansey picks a leaf out of Adam's hair it feels nice, not dangerous.

After they eat, which is to say after Adam watches Gansey pick his impeccable way through soup and a sandwich while navigating his own obstacle course food, they make the wordless decision to head up the street towards the water. Adam kicks off his shoes and takes them up in his hand so that he can feel the cool, silky sand against his feet. Next to him Gansey does the same. The ocean feels too vast and mysterious to face alone, like infinite Cabeswaters melded together.

Neither of them say anything for a while. The breeze enthusiastically ruffles Gansey's hair, and then Adam's hair, as if saying _good boy, you did it._ Except nothing has been done yet. After all of this, Adam is still mucked from Cabeswater and Gansey is still no closer to Glendower and even though a few handfuls of internships are now Adam's to pick and choose from, he still feels afraid to have a choice at all.

"Excelsior," Gansey pipes up. The word reverberates through Adam almost physically, and then he realizes it's because Gansey has taken the liberty of speaking directly into his good ear, one breath away from a kiss there. Gansey's free hand takes hold of Adam's free wrist and they make their way onwards towards the hungry shoreline. As they walk, Gansey continues, "I can't keep doing this, and you can't keep doing this."

"Keep doing what?"

"Adam." Gansey's voice is sprightly. "You have to start living in the moment again. You can't let Cabeswater pull you out like this."

Adam considers. Shakes his head. It's bad enough that Cabeswater has to be his safety net. Bad enough that he isn't his own safety net. "I can't afford that."

"Yes you can." Gansey's face is frowning, pouting almost -- childish, boyish confusion. "You can afford to have friends. You can afford to have us -- Ronan and Blue and Noah and myself. This doesn't cost anything."

Maybe Adam should keep fighting. But he hears it -- _you can afford to have friends_. You can afford to have friends. Like a spell, a more solid and lighter and friendlier spell than what he uses to scry on with. No sacrifices. Perhaps some things in life do come free. Perhaps he can invest something more concrete, more Adam into this. Perhaps isolation is more costly than anything else. Gansey looks earnestly passionate in the dying daylight. Perhaps Adam should listen to him before he gets ticked off the St. Mark's Eve list of the dying. The thought of that list spears a heavy wooden coldness into his chest.

He says, low, "Let's go back."

Gansey does not ask if he's speaking literally or figuratively. He rarely has to.

That's what he likes about Gansey.

\--

The other thing Adam likes about Gansey is how it takes him one hand to pin Adam's hips into the door so that he can use the other hand to endlessly stroke over his eyebrow while they're kissing. It's a strange thing, a Gansey thing. Adam's lips part into a sigh and he opens his eyes. Gansey's eyes are already open.

"How much will this cost me," Adam asks quietly against Gansey's mouth.

Gansey pulls back just enough to answer back. "The truth."

"I'm all yours, then," Adam says. It is not a lie.

He doesn't even have to add the rest; Gansey just groans and surges forward to kiss him harder, makes Adam feel like a sinking weight with the way he wants to slump all the way into the wall. Gansey makes him want to melt into something more pliable instead of being his brittle self. Gansey's tongue is somewhat trying to clean his teeth of the last remnants of his dinner, which is disgusting in theory but so, so good in practice.

"You're _yours_ ," Gansey breathes against his neck, an answer -- and then he sinks lower and more or less attacks the buttons on Adam's jeans and Adam stuffs his fingers into Gansey's hair and can't be fucked (but oh god he can) about anything else. "I want you. Am I allowed to want you?"

Adam opens his mouth. "God," he says, or maybe he doesn't say anything at all and moans instead; it's kind of hard to tell, "yes."

Gansey, who has won the battle against Adam's zipper, breathes wetly against his boxers and causes Adam to shove his head away for a moment, shuddering at how sensitive he feels, how easy it is to practically tip over the edge already. Gansey comes back only a moment later to tug down his underwear as well, and then, with a quick inhale, grabs hold of him -- Jesus, Adam thinks -- and takes him into his mouth.

Adam's hips jerk forward. One of his hands find the general area of his face and covers it. The other one curls into Gansey's hair harder. Gansey's mouth -- Gansey's mouth, which probably knew silver and gold and wealth and beautiful things from the moment he was born, wrapped around his cock like it knows no difference -- sucks at him with efficient and stomach twisting skill.

Adam feels somewhat like one of his internal organs, probably his heart with how hard it's pounding, is bursting violently and flooding blood into his head. It makes no sense and he knows it doesn't make any sense, but then again, Cabeswater makes no sense either and here he is, two parts terror and one part magic, tipping his head so far back that breathing gets hard as he twitches helplessly and fucks Gansey's mouth shallow and weak without knowing in any capacity what he's doing.

It takes him three whole minutes to remove his hand from his face, afterwards -- enough time for Gansey to lick him clean, which is a vile and horribly not blue-blooded thing for a Gansey to do, tuck him back into his underwear and jeans neatly, zip him up, redo the button that could very well be Satan's, and head into the bathroom to... wash his hands, or something. Adam comes to, not literally, although it's the closest thing to what happens, while there's a lot of splashing going on in the direction of the sink.

Gansey is splashing around the sink. Gansey is splashing around and making himself sanitary after giving him, Adam Parrish, a blowjob. Gansey gave Adam a blowjob.

Adam decides he's had enough of being afraid to want.

He walks over to the bathroom and shoves open the door, whereupon he sees that Gansey has stopped splashing water onto his face and is merely letting the faucet run while staring hauntingly into the mirror fixed above it.

"Don't waste water," says Adam, in full control of himself and his voice and it's a glorious, glorious feeling. Gansey shuts off the tap obediently. He turns around. Adam notices then that he's removed his charmingly, insultingly colored polo and is merely dressed in his white undershirt. He can't remember why he didn't notice it earlier.

"I want you," continues Adam, still in full and beautiful control, and when Gansey nods, his hair dripping water over his pretty eyes and down his boyish cheeks and past his beautiful and indiscriminating mouth and down his all-American chin, he yanks Gansey out of the bathroom by his shirt collar and drags him over to one of the beds -- Adam can't tell which, and it probably doesn't matter at this point.

\--

They take their sweet time driving back down to Virginia, which means Gansey drives in a way that's as aimless as Gansey ever gets and Adam on-and-off dozes in the passenger seat, staring periodically at the navigator on Gansey's phone. Ever so often Gansey asks him if he's hungry and once they take a pit stop, but the journey winds on pretty much slow and measured, and Adam once again doesn't know what to say.

It is a cruel and real thing to want something this bad and know it belongs to someone else.

They don't talk about Blue. They don't talk about how when they get back to Henrietta Gansey will lay his eyes on Blue and and the stars will come back into his smile and burn brighter and happier and they don't talk about the way Adam will settle into a long bench at St. Agnes and bend his honey colored head close to Ronan's dark one and ignore the wavering viscous air between them. Gansey makes the Pig go steady, the way his breathing is, and Adam watches flashes of colorful little towns and long stretches of green whip by through the window, gray road stretched out in an endless yawn before them.

Adam surprises himself by talking first, as they pull past the clean starched Northern Virginia streets into something with more dust. "Gansey," he says, and then pauses, and then says -- "Excelsior."

 

//


End file.
